GCash Scan to Pay Now Enabled in Mercato Centrale

Both consumers and merchants of highly-popular night food market Mercato Centrale do not have to worry anymore about paying smaller bills and giving out exact change as GCash, the leading mobile money service provider in the Philippines, rolls out the first QR mobile payments service at the country’s largest foodpark chain.

With this newest feature within the GCash App, customers can already use their GCash account to pay for their food and drinks by simply scanning QR codes displayed at Mercato Centrale merchants. For consumers, this eliminates the hassle of bringing money, waiting for change, or getting into a dispute with the cashier over payments. Merchants, on the other hand, no longer need expensive machines to process mobile money transactions but only a QR with a unique code that is linked to their GCash wallet.

Mercato Centrale co-founder RJ Ledesma (left) and Mynt Chief Operating Officer Anthony Thomas (right) demonstrate the ease and convenience of using the new scan-to-pay feature of the GCash app.

“Mynt is dedicated to bringing the latest innovations in payments and e-commerce to the Philippines to continually enable the financially underserved, and this service is just one of many to come.” said James Mauricio Aujero, Head, Merchant Acquisition of Mynt, a subsidiary of Globe Telecom, which aims to address financial inclusion through mobile money, micro-loans, and technology.

“GCash is a great opportunity for our small-scale food business entrepreneurs to serve more clients, expand their customer base and scale up their business!”, Mercato Centrale co-founder RJ Ledesma added, pertaining to the value and convenience GCash adds to his franchise.

To use the scan to pay GCash feature, a customer with an iPhone or an Android smartphone only needs to download or update to the latest version of the GCash App, register for an account, and fund his GCash wallet at any of over 12,000 GCash Partner Outlets nationwide, including Globe Stores, SM Business Centers, Puregold branches, Robinsons Business Centers, 7-Eleven Cliqq kiosks, and TouchPay kiosks, among others. Once done, he just has to tap on Scan QR, point is phone’s camera at the partner’s QR code, and pay.

“Mynt aims to bring access and convenience in payments to the vast majority of Filipinos through GCash. With our recently announced strategic partner, Ant Financial, we will use technology that has scaled for hundreds of millions of customers in China, India and other countries in Asia. We will do this in partnership with local merchants and are very excited to be associated with Mercato Centrale as a pioneer in introducing QR-based payments to the market”, added Mynt’s Chief Operating Officer Anthony Thomas.

Also featured in the GCash-Mercato Centrale partnership is GCat, GCash’s friendly white cat mascot. Customers should expect more of GCat in the coming months as the company rapidly expands its presence nationwide from commercial payments to business solutions.

Inspired by the Asian night food market scene, Mercato Centrale is the Philippines’ largest and longest-running food market in the Philippines. With its flagship location in Bonifacio Global City and upcoming locations in Metro Manila, it caters to thousands of foodies from Wednesdays to Saturdays, from 6PM to 3AM, serving a wide variety of great-tasting meals from authentic home-based chefs ranging from Japanese to Mexican to European cuisines to local comfort and street food. Food prices range from P50 to a still affordable P200 per meal. It is located at 7th Ave. cor. 25th St. in Bonifacio Global City.

GCash’s scan to pay QR code feature is continuing its rollout in select partner merchants in the coming weeks. Its introduction is in line with with the thrust of China’s Ant Financial, parent company of Alipay and strategic partner of Mynt, to accelerate financial inclusion and upgrade payment services in the Philippines. Alipay popularized QR code payments in China with over 400 million users.